Cinematical's Friday Night Double Feature: Road Trippin'

This is the perfect time for a road trip -- the sun is high in the sky, the weather is warm, and the roads are clear. But alas, the responsibilities of adulthood and busy scheduling don't always make the open road a viable option. Luckily, however, there's always the movies -- a million different cinematic road adventures to explore.

For this double feature, I'm giving you a little taste of the '90s and then a little taste of the '80s. One is a feature that helped start the careers of two notable actors, and spawned a terrible copy-cat film with Tom Green. The other made soft, warm pillows seem like more than just a wonderfully relaxing safe haven. Sit back and enjoy Overnight Delivery and Planes, Trains, and Automobiles.

I'm a bit of an Overnight Delivery freak; I've mentioned it before, and retro-reviewed it last year. I'll be the first to admit that it's not the best film, but at the same time, it's not the worst. Instead, it hangs out in the middle-ground, charm overriding the foibles and making it one of those underground classics. It's not the type of film that will garner a million re-releases, but rather one that will sometimes pop up in conversation and bring that flash of recognition and camaraderie.

Paul Rudd plays a deeply devoted, eternally horny, and pent up college student named Wyatt Trips, who finds out that his long-distance, high school girlfriend is cheating on him. Devastated, he goes out to the local strip club with some friends, meets a stripper named Ivy (Reese Witherspoon), gets his revenge, and then realizes that there may be nothing to feel vengeful about. Thus begins an insane adventure to right things and keep his love life in tact.

TRIVIA

Kevin Smith wrote an infamously uncredited re-write.

Joey Lauren Adams, his then-girlfriend, was going to star (and thus not be in Chasing Amy) until Reese nabbed it -- beginning Smith's displeasure with the actress.

John Hughes' late-'80s films weren't only of the teen variety. There was also Planes, Trains, and Automobiles, which teamed Steve Martin up with the late and great John Candy. When a Thanksgiving flight is canceled due to bad weather, the pair don't sit at the airport and moan about their misfortune. Instead, they hit the road. Like Trips and Ivy, the pair go through a bunch of disasters over the course of their journey, although the sexy bits aren't, well, so sexy. But hey, I know someone who had an almost-pillow experience once, so it happens.

Unlike Overnight Delivery, however, this movie seems to be loved by all. It appears on many top-film and comedy lists from Roger Ebert's Great Movies collection to Total Film's Greatest Comedies. Heck, it even has an almost-perfect rating on Rotten Tomatoes.